How to control disease transmission: Margaret Brazier and John Harris’s ‘Public health and private lives’

Abstract

This chapter examines Margaret Brazier and John Harris’s article on the law and ethics of infectious diseases, ‘Public health and private lives’, published in the Medical Law Review in 1996. Brazier and Harris urged reform of the ‘draconian’ powers available under the Public Health (Control of Diseases) Act 1984 but maintained that criminalisation for the transmission of disease could be justified. They concluded that a new crime of reckless endangerment should be created. In this chapter, it is argued that ‘Public health and private lives’ is a leading work for its predictive powers by anticipating the importance of public health, and also for presenting formidable arguments for the criminalisation of disease transmission.